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As M.B.S. conjures this brave new world - no journey will take more than 20 minutes! zero carbon emissions! - you get the sense that his chutzpah is nothing short of metaphysical.
當MBS變出這個勇敢的新世界時——任何旅程都不會超過20分鐘！而且零碳排放！——你會感覺到他那大膽的行為簡直是形而上學。
He appears to believe that nature itself is at his command.
他似乎相信大自然是由他指揮的。
This shouldn't be entirely surprising, because M.B.S. has been promoting equally outlandish ideas since 2017, when he first introduced Neom, the broader futurist development of which the Line forms a part. (The name is a portmanteau of Greek and Arabic words for "new" and "future.")
這并不完全令人驚訝，因為MBS自2017年首次提出Neom這一概念以來，就一直在推廣同樣天方夜譚的理念，Neom是一種更廣泛的未來派發展，而The Line正是Neom的一部分。（這個名字由希臘語和阿拉伯語組成，表示“新的”和“未來”。）
The Neom prospectus described "a new way of life from birth to death reaching genetic mutations to increase human strength and I.Q.," according to a 2019 article in The Wall Street Journal.
《華爾街日報》2019年的一篇文章稱，Neom的簡介描述了“一種從出生到死亡的新生活方式，通過基因突變來增加人類的力量和智商”。
Cloud-seeding would bring rain to the desert.
人工降雨會給沙漠帶來雨水。
The project includes serious, realistic planning on desalination, alternative energy and desert agriculture, I was told by Ali Shihabi, a member of the Neom advisory board.
Neom咨詢委員會成員阿里·沙哈比告訴我，該項目包括對海水淡化、可替代能源和沙漠農業進行認真、現實的規劃。
But those ideas were overshadowed by wild-eyed talk of super-high-speed trains, robotic maids and beaches with glowing sand.
但這些想法的光彩被超高速列車、機器人女傭和閃閃發光的沙灘的狂野言論所掩蓋。
The hubris underlying these proposals, nourished by generations of yes men (including well-paid Western consultants), will be familiar to anyone who has spent time in Saudi Arabia.
一代又一代唯唯諾諾者（包括高薪的西方顧問）助長了這些提議背后的傲慢，任何在沙特阿拉伯待過的人都會熟悉這些提議。
Still, you might have expected a bit more circumspection from M.B.S., at least right now.
不過，至少現在，你可能還以為MBS會更謹慎一點。
This is the man who stands accused of ordering the gruesome murder of Jamal Khashoggi, the Saudi journalist who was lured to the Saudi Consulate in Istanbul in 2018, then strangled and dismembered with a bone saw by a team sent from Riyadh.
這就是被指控下令謀殺沙特記者賈馬爾·哈蘇吉的人，哈蘇吉在2018年被引誘到沙特駐伊斯坦布爾領事館，然后被從利雅得派出的一個小組勒死并用骨頭鋸肢解。
Khashoggi dared to write mildly critical columns in The Washington Post.
哈蘇吉敢于在《華盛頓郵報》上撰寫溫和批評的專欄。
The details of his brutal killing shocked the world and made M.B.S. a pariah.
他殘暴殺害的細節震驚了世界，MBS變得為人唾棄。
He has condemned the murder and denies any role in it. (The C.I.A. begs to differ.)
他譴責了這起謀殺案，否認與此有關。（中情局可不這么認為。）
Humility is not in M.B.S.'s genes, for better and worse.
不管怎樣，MBS的基因里都沒有謙遜這一概念。
He continues to harass and jail his critics as if the Khashoggi murder never came to light.
他繼續騷擾和監禁他的批評者，就好像哈蘇吉謀殺案從未曝光一樣。
But his brashness has allowed him to hem in Saudi Arabia's religious establishment, putting an end to the kingdom's longtime promotion of poisonous Islamist doctrine.
但是，他的魯莽讓他在沙特阿拉伯的宗教機構受限，這終結了沙特長期宣揚惡毒的伊斯蘭教義的進程。
He is relaxing the rigid constraints on cultural life, and that has made him immensely popular, especially among the young.
他正在放松對文化生活的嚴格限制，這使他非常受歡迎，特別是在年輕人之中。
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